Signing With Kids at Home
sooo. this one's a little different because it's not really a lesson about new signs. it's a lesson about what to do with the signs you already have.
i keep saying this class is a "practical starting point" and nowhere does that matter more than at your own kitchen table. you don't need forty signs to start doing this with your kids. you need like six and a willingness to look a little goofy in front of a five year old, which, if you have a five year old, you've already accepted as a life condition.
start smaller than feels useful
pick three signs. not ten. three.
my go-tos when the peterson kids were little were milk, more, all done. that's it for week one. because those cover about eighty percent of what a little kid is trying to communicate anyway, and it gives them a fast win. fast wins are what make a kid keep doing something.
do the sign every single time you say the word. not instead of the word. with the word. "do you want more?" — sign more. "are you all done?" — sign all done. you're not teaching a secret code, you're just adding a second channel next to the one they already have.
let them correct you
here's the thing nobody warns you about: your kid is going to get better than you, fast, and they're going to let you know about it.
holland was six when she caught my sign for milk at breakfast. hands on her hips, dead serious, fixed it right there at the table. and she was right. i'd been doing it slightly wrong for weeks and nobody said anything until a six year old did.
i keep that one in my back pocket because it's a good reminder — kids pick this stuff up scary fast, way faster than adults, and the adult's job is just to get over being wrong in front of them. that's it. that's the whole skill. let the correction happen and say "oh heck, you're right" and move on.
build a few "house signs"
once you've got the basics down, this is where it gets fun. every family that does this ends up with a couple signs that are just theirs.
toni and i have one for "i'm done, let's go" — i taught it to her specifically so we could bail on parties without a whole production. no "well i guess we should probably think about heading out," just a little sign across the room and we're moving toward the coats. funny thing is she uses it on me now, usually around my third side-conversation of the night when i've completely lost track of time. fair's fair.
your family will find its own version of this. maybe it's a sign for "five more minutes" at bedtime. maybe it's something private between you and a kid who's shy in front of company. that's genuinely one of the best parts of doing this at home instead of out of a workbook — it turns into something that's yours.
fair warning though: kids figure out fast that sign can be a workaround. mia went through a stretch where she'd only ask for snacks in sign, because she'd correctly identified that i could not say no to it when it was cute. i call this the manipulation phase. it's coming for you too. you'll survive it, mostly by laughing.
the daily habit that actually sticks
if you want one thing to take from this lesson, make it this: pick a moment in your day that already happens every single day, and put a sign there.
for us it's the school drop-off line. every morning, no exceptions, i sign i love you to the kids from the car before they get out. doesn't matter if we're running late, doesn't matter if everybody's cranky, it happens. kade's at the age now where he does the low, cool version by his hip so his friends don't clock it. i don't care. he still does it. i count that as a win, honestly a bigger one than if he signed it big and proud, because it means it's actually his now and not just something dad makes him do.
that's the opinion i keep coming back to in this class: useful first, pretty later. a sign doesn't have to be crisp or textbook-correct to count. it has to happen consistently in a spot in your life where it means something. the polish comes later, if it comes at all.
a couple honest cautions
nothing dramatic here, just — go slow with a toddler the same way i tell adults to go slow. mushy fast signs are confusing for a two year old the same way they're confusing for a beginner adult. clear and slow beats fast every time.
and don't turn it into a performance for other people. if grandma's over and you're making the kid sign on command like a party trick, that gets old for them fast and they'll shut down. keep it woven into normal life, not a show.
Before next time
try picking your three signs this week — something like milk, more, all done, or whatever fits your house — and just use them at one meal a day. see what sticks. i'd bet money it's not what you expect.
~terry